ChatGPT Lets You Lock a Chat. Don’t Mistake That for a Private Vault.
Locked chats can keep a saved conversation out of your regular history. They don’t change what happens to the information inside it.
OpenAI added a way to hide a saved ChatGPT conversation behind a lock. That could be handy if you share your screen and would rather not display the chat where you planned a surprise party, drafted a difficult email, or asked a question you simply don’t want sitting in plain sight.
But the word locked is doing a lot of work here. It means harder for someone looking at your ChatGPT history to open. It does not mean the conversation has become a private vault.
OpenAI announced locked chats on October 20, 2026. To use one, open the chat’s ••• menu and choose Lock chat. The conversation stays saved, but leaves your regular history, pinned chats, and regular conversation search. You can find it under Projects → Locked chats and open it with a four-digit account PIN or, where supported, your device’s authentication.
The feature is rolling out gradually. OpenAI’s updated instructions list Free, Go, Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu accounts on the web, iOS, Android, and the new ChatGPT desktop app for Mac and Windows. ChatGPT for Healthcare is excluded. Free accounts are included, and OpenAI lists no separate charge. If you don’t see Lock chat yet, that may be the rollout, not a problem with your account.
Now the part worth knowing before you put anything sensitive in there: locking a chat does not give it end-to-end encryption. It does not change how long OpenAI keeps the conversation or your account’s setting for using conversations to improve its models. It does not remove anything the conversation already saved to Memory. And if you previously made a shared link to that chat, locking it does not take the link back.
There’s also a nasty consequence to forgetting your PIN. OpenAI says resetting it permanently deletes all locked chats and any content protected only by that PIN. That is a fairly important detail for a feature intended to help you keep conversations.
If you want to save a conversation but keep it out of casual view, locked chats are useful. If you don’t want a conversation appearing in your history in the first place, Temporary Chat is the different option. Neither choice should be confused with permission to type in anything you wouldn’t want retained or shared.
Information checked: October 24, 2026.
Sources
- ChatGPT release notes (2026-10-20)
- Using locked chats in ChatGPT (2026-10-22)
Information checked: October 24, 2026.
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